Pam went down to Aberdeen today to see the consultant. All full of doom and gloom but I got a phone call just after dinner (That is dinner at dinner time, not tea at teatime. I mean about 1PM)and she was really chirrupy. Very nice to hear. The consultant had obviously cheered her up more than I could.
Up here it was a nice Orkney autumn day. Very windy and rain all day.
I decided that it was not fit for anything so I caught up with all my e-mails and other things on the computer.
Thursday 30th September 2010
When I was walking back from the village this morning I was just going to turn up the hill towards home when I looked down Water Sound and there was a big grey really scary looking ship going very slowly past in front of Flotta. I have always liked the look of warships, they are either massive and darkly threatening or wonderfully sleek reminiscent of an ocean going greyhound. This one however looked peculiar. The hull had the beautiful fast lines of a hunter but the superstructure was weird and vaguely menacing. As it was also painted grey I assumed that it must be a destroyer but not like one I had ever seen.
Just to check, when I got home I had a look on "ship plotter" to see if it was on there. Surprise, surprise it was not on ship plotter. I wonder why the navy do not have there ships on plotter. It would make it much easier for them to keep track of their ships and to know if they were "skiving off" in the Carribean when they should have been patrolling off Iceland.
On the way into Kirkwall we took a detour to overlook Scapa Flow near Holm and got a couple of photos of the ship. Not the best photos in the world but she was right out in the middle of the flow probably about 2-3 miles away. ( Is it against the official secrets act to photograph Royal Navy ships? )
Anyway it turns out that it is HMS Dauntless and she was having a days respite in the flow after taking part in some exercises and before going about her duties again.
For those of you who have a copy of "Jayne's Fighting Ships" for their bedtime reading, Dauntless is a Type 45 Air Defence Destroyer and was only launched in June 2010 so that is why she is all pretty and clean. She is apparently one of the most powerful air defence ships in the world but I could only see one piddling little gun on the foredeck so I think they are telling lies.
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